This book has been a long time coming. Two-and-a-bit years coming. First and foremost, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for being so patient in waiting for it. Every hour I spent working on this book made it stronger, and the extra time I took to polish it means that I’m truly proud of the story you now hold in your hands. I hope you enjoyed Paige’s third adventure, and that it was worth the wait. Onward to the fourth one . . .
The next acknowledgements go to my wonderful editors, Alexa von Hirschberg and Genevieve Herr. I can’t express how grateful I am to you both for your patience, wisdom and enthusiasm. I couldn’t have pulled The Song Rising out of the bag without you.
Thank you to everyone at DGA – most of all to my agent, the incomparable David Godwin, who always has my back – and to Heather Godwin, Lisette Verhagen and Philippa Sitters. Thank you for always championing my writing, and for eating cake with me on that day when I got really overwhelmed.
Thank you to everyone at the Imaginarium Studios for your continued support, especially Chloe Sizer and Will Tennant, whose insight and encouragement has once again been invaluable.
To Alexandra Pringle, Amanda Shipp, Anurima Roy, Ben Turner, Brendan Fredericks, Callum Kenny, Cristina Gilbert, Diya Kar Hazra, Faiza Khan, George Gibson, Hermione Lawton, Imogen Denny, Isabel Blake, Jack Birch, Kathleen Farrar, Laura Keefe, Lea Beresford, Madeleine Feeny, Marie Coolman, Nancy Miller, Nicole Jarvis, Philippa Cotton, Rachel Mannheimer, Sara Mercurio, Tram-Anh Doan, and everyone else at Bloomsbury for your dedication to this series. I wake up every day feeling so lucky to be working with you.
Thank you to Sarah-Jane Forder for the thorough copyediting, and to David Mann and Emily Faccini for making The Song Rising look just as gorgeous as the previous two books.
Thank you to my translators and publishers worldwide, who work so hard to get my books into the hands of readers who I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to reach.
As an author, it’s sometimes necessary to write about places you haven’t lived in. While I visited Manchester and Edinburgh during the process of writing this book, I am a Londoner to the core, and I knew I could never re-create these two great cities without some help. Thank you to Ciarán Collins, who has once again patiently answered my many questions about Irish; Louise O’Neill for giving the Ancoats scene the once-over; Moss Freed for his insight into Manchester; and Stuart Kelly for being kind enough to be my guide in Edinburgh.
Some other lovely folks whose knowledge has contributed to this book are Melissa Harrison, for bird and tree-related assistance; Paul Talling, of Derelict London, for the tour of the Fleet; Richard Andrew Vincent Smith, whose knowledge of trains is surely unparalleled, or at the very least, far superior to my own – thank you for taking the time to check the Stoke-on-Trent part when you were in the midst of revising; and Sara Bergmark Elfgren, for helping with the Swedish again. Thank you, as well, to the many kind strangers on Twitter who have replied so quickly and willingly when I’ve asked for help with languages and dialect – you are the people who make the Internet great.
Ilana Fernandes-Lassman and Vickie Morrish – you are the kind of friends everyone deserves. Thank you for always being there whenever I emerge from the tunnel of drafting edits, to eat pizza and laugh ourselves silly.
I’ve historically been a solitary creature when it comes to my creative process, but over the last couple of years I’ve learned how much of a lifesaver it can be to share the journey with people who are also experiencing the ups and downs of conveying a story from imagination to page. Thank you to Alwyn Hamilton, Laure Eve and Melinda Salisbury, and to Team Maleficent – Claire Donnelly, Leiana Leatutufu, Lisa Lueddecke, Katherine Webber and Krystal Sutherland – for being such great friends over the past year. You are all seriously talented ladies, and it’s truly an honour to know you.
Thank you to the booksellers, book bloggers, Bookstagrammers, Booktubers, reviewers, librarians and other book-loving people who have done so much to support and talk about the Bone Season series.
Finally, thank you to my family for putting up with me in my moments of self-doubt as well as my moments of triumph. I might have flown the nest this year, but I wouldn’t have been able to start writing these books in the first place if I hadn’t had you there to support me following my dream.